


Special Delivery

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Courier AU, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M, Terrible Courier Techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no way Clint is going to let that asshole Bucky Barnes beat him to be the best driver at Avengers Couriers, especially not when he always goes out of his way to try and piss Clint off.</p>
<p>Courier AU. Yeah, don't ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special Delivery

It wasn't properly a competition until Pietro left, because it wasn't as if any of the other drivers had a hope in hell of ever getting close to him. Pietro had been able to do well over a hundred deliveries a day, all the collections in his area, and still somehow manage to get into the depot well before Clint was anywhere near thinking about heading back.

He used to bring back carded deliveries, though. Clint always prided himself on being the one guy who never bought any parcels back unless he absolutely had to, even if he had to try every neighbour on the street to get someone to take them. That is, he had always prided himself on being the one guy, right up until Bucky started working at Avenger Couriers and Clint became one of two guys, and vaguely annoyed about it.

The annoyance became less vague once Pietro moved on to Angels Express and Clint realised that he and Bucky were now competing to be the best driver at Avenger Couriers. Oh, hell no, he'd been at Avengers since Tony and Steve had set the company up. There was no way he was letting some guy who'd only started a couple of months ago beat him, especially not as everyone knew he'd only got the job because he was Steve's best friend. Apparently he had some kind of dodgy employment history that meant no one else would touch him, but details were never forthcoming. That was pretty much Bucky in a nutshell, really. He never really spoke to anyone except Steve; just kept his head down and tried to take the crown that should be Clint's away from him.

Not that there was an actual crown, of course, although Clint was willing to bet he could talk Tony into getting one. Once he'd made it clear that he'd be the one wearing it, of course.

Clint was getting himself a coffee one morning while Sam got his run loaded on to his scanner when Bucky came into the kitchen, clearly on the same mission. He gave Clint a nod that he returned, coolly.

"How many have you got today?" asked Bucky, resting against the wall to wait for the coffee machine. Of course, the guy was perfectly happy to talk if it meant he got to taunt Clint.

Clint felt his eyes narrow. "85," he said, taking his coffee from the machine.

"Ah. I've got 93," said Bucky and, Christ, did he have to sound so smug?

"Guess I'll be back way before you, then," said Clint, heading for the door. Time to get on the road and power through his run, so he could make sure to be back at least an hour before Bucky. No, wait, he could totally make that two hours.

"I guess," said Bucky, to Clint's retreating back. “Have a good day.” That fucker.

Clint got his scanner from Sam, ducked out of the way of Wade's attempt to trip him up and got out of the depot only to find that Logan's van was blocking his in. That fucking asshole.

He stormed back into the warehouse to find the bastard. "Oi!" he called, seeing him at the shelf of held deliveries with Steve, right at the back of the warehouse and away from the hustle of the other drivers. "Would you move your van? Some of us were on time this morning and want to get going."

Logan didn't even glance over at him. "One moment, bub, got to find one first."

"You can do that after," said Clint. "Move your van."

Logan turned and glared over his shoulder at him. "I said, _wait_. Some idiot's put one of mine in the wrong place, and we can't find it."

Clint didn't want to wind Logan up too much. He'd heard too many tales about what happened when you did that. Instead, he transferred his gaze to Steve. "I need to get out and on my way," he said, and then played his trump card. "I've got three pre-9 deliveries."

Steve sighed and looked at Logan. "If you go and move your van, I'll keep looking." There it was. Threaten being late on a timed delivery and all the depot staff would bend over backwards to do whatever you wanted. None of them wanted to have to take a phone call from an enraged consignee.

Logan made an angry growling noise but stalked off towards his van. Clint decided to just casually hang back for a minute or two. Not because he was scared of the guy, just, you know. He liked talking to Steve.

"So, have you asked Sam out yet?" he asked. He'd caught Steve staring at Sam's ass with even less than his usual subtlety when he'd arrived that morning, and he was getting to the stage of enough being enough.

Steve froze, one hand holding a parcel. He turned and gave Clint a deer-in-headlights look. "Haha, very funny," he croaked.

"Not trying to be funny," said Clint. "Come on, do you think we're blind? You and him spend half your time making eyes at each other."

"I'm not the one being blind," muttered Steve, turning back to the shelving to bury his face in the parcels, going through them with abrupt movements.

"Wrong disability. Nothing wrong with my eyes, just my ears," said Clint, tapping his aids. "Not that that stops me hearing the thwarted longing in your voice as you discuss driver's runs with Sam."

Steve pulled a parcel out and stared at the label. "This is the one Logan was looking for," he said. "He's probably moved his van by now, you should go. Don't want to miss those pre-9s."

Clint snorted. "Sure, that was a totally smooth change of subject." He turned back towards the warehouse door. "Just saying though, maybe you should take a chance."

" _You_ take a damn chance," muttered Steve, which didn't make much sense.

Clint got back in his van just as Bucky drove out past him, raising his arm in a jaunty wave. Damn it.

****

When he got back into the depot that night, Bucky was already there, unloading. Clint felt himself twitch at the sight, but resolutely didn't let it show on his face.

"Hey," said Bucky, giving him an unnecessarily smug grin. "How was your day?"

"No cardeds," said Clint.

"Ah, I had two," said Bucky. Clint had to refrain from a pumped fist.

"Bucky, did all these tubes come from Westchester?" asked Steve, and Bucky's attention was pulled back to the freight being unloaded from his van. Clint took the chance to slink off to get coffee. If he was lucky, Bucky would leave as soon as he was unloaded and save Clint from having to see his smug face.

He didn't. He hung around and helped unload Clint's van as if he didn't have a home to go to, asking Clint about the traffic in his area as if he wasn't secretly gloating about being back first. Or, well, not-so-secretly.

Clint ignored him as much as he could in favour of talking to Steve, although he waited until Steve had signed his paperwork off before he started back on the conversation from this morning. He wasn't an idiot.

"So, did you ask Sam for a drink before he went?"

Steve let out a long sigh. "I'm not gonna ask Sam out."

Bucky shot Clint a grin and joined in. "Ah, come on, Stevie, he'd almost certainly say yes. Just go for it."

"Seriously?" Steve said to him. "You think _you_ should be talking to me about this?"

Bucky's face shuttered. " _Sam's_ a sure thing.”

That seemed like odd emphasis, but Clint didn't have a chance to try and work it out because Tony came out of the office. He and Steve had a pretty clear division of labour; Steve ran the warehouse and Tony ran the office. It worked well because Steve was not-so-secretly terrible with computers and Tony couldn't lift 50 kilograms one-handed without breaking a sweat.

"Hey, hey, fellers!" Tony said. "Enough flirting. Bucky, Maria wants your paperwork. Clint, Natasha wants to ask you about something you mis-delivered, Steve-"

"What?" said Clint. "Oh, hell no. I don't mis-deliver."

He headed into the office to do battle with Natasha. She saw him coming and said something, but the phone was ringing, three people were all talking at once, and Clint's aids couldn't cope. He shook his head at her and raised his hands.

_I don't mis-deliver_ , he signed. He'd been friends with Natasha for years, since long before they'd both ended up at Avengers Couriers. Since before he'd lost most of his hearing, even. They'd both learnt sign together, which was handy as hell when Clint needed to work out what was going on when the office was a din of over-lapping sounds.

_That's what all the drivers say,_ she signed back, which hurt, seriously. Clint wasn't 'all the drivers', he was Clint Barton, the best damn delivery driver in the company. And screw Bucky if he thought differently. _Come look at the job and tell me where you went with it._

Clint came forward to look at her screen, frowning at the address. Ah, Christ, that was five days ago, how was he meant to remember that?

Natasha tapped his arm and gestured at Bucky, who had handed his paperwork to Maria and was now hovering by the door. Clint glanced up to see him say something that looked like, “Bye. See who to marrow.”

Okay, maybe Clint's lip-reading needed some work. He'd add that to the list of things to put off doing in favour of eating pizza and watching _Dog Cops_.

"See you," he said in response, hoping his volume was okay. Screw it, why did the guy think he needed to say goodbye, anyway? They weren't friends, they were deadly rivals. Well, maybe not _deadly_. Not yet, anyway.

He glanced back down at Natasha's screen without waiting to see if Bucky had anything else to add.

****

Mornings at the depot were pretty much bedlam: hoards of drivers and sorters wandering around, shouting over each other, van engines revving, Peter rushing about on the fork-lift and Sam trying to make himself heard over it all so he could direct the operation. Clint usually couldn't separate any of it out enough to be able to properly hear anything and just tried to get loaded up and out as quickly as possible, before someone tried to have a conversation with him and he had to admit that he was too deaf for that.

Most people knew not to try and talk to him in the morning, but Bucky seemed to be making it a habit to come over and bother him. Fuck that shit, Clint wasn't in the mood to deal with his attitude before he'd had his third cup of coffee. He took to just shaking his head at him and heading for the kitchen to top up his caffeine.

Getting back into the depot in the evening was much calmer. There was rarely more than one or two drivers there at a time.

A week later, Clint got back before Bucky despite having had more deliveries, which made him want to crow with delight even if Bucky wasn't far behind. He got back to the warehouse just after Clint had unloaded and handed his paperwork in.

"Afternoon," he said, grinning at Bucky to make it clear just how much better than him he was. Oh yeah, this was going to be the start of a run of awesome, he was going to kick the bastard's ass and leave him trailing in his dust. Part of him wanted to do a dance, but was worried that might be too douchey.

Bucky just stared at him for a long moment. Either he was kinda slow, or he was having trouble processing that Clint had kicked his ass. “Hi,” he said, eventually.

"Bit late today, aren't you?" asked Clint, bouncing on his heels. That wasn't douchey. Right?

Bucky shrugged. "They closed Hampton Street for an hour. Traffic got all backed up."

Damnit, that meant Clint hadn't beaten him on his own merits. Eh, beating him was still winning, didn't matter what caused it.

Wait, Hampton Street? Aw, road closure, no.

"Crap, I go home that way," said Clint. "Maybe I'll go round by Redhurst Avenue." He threw his van keys up and caught them, debating his choices. “Or Timber Road.”

Bucky shook his head. “Don't go up Timber Road. They've got temporary traffic lights.”

Clint made a face. “Ugh, okay. Redhurst Avenue it is, then.”

"You're not going to stay and help unload Bucky?" said Steve. "Return the favour from the other day?"

Bucky sent Steve a furious glare at the suggestion, which made Clint abruptly change his plan. Anything to piss the guy off.

"Sure," he said. "You got a lot of collections, Bucky?"

Bucky's glare disappeared as if switched off when he looked back at Clint. "Baxter gave me 63," he said, so casually that if Clint hadn't just seen it, he'd think he was fine with Clint staying to help. "And Atlantis had a fair few, and those all need labelling. But I'm sure Steve and I-"

"Oh, I've got to go do important things over there," said Steve. "You guys just crack on with it, I'm sure I can trust you not to mess up." He gave Bucky a grin, then disappeared off towards the warehouse computer, looking as if he was sniggering to himself.

Clint blinked after him, then looked back at Bucky, who had clenched his fists. "Did you do something to piss him off?"

"Nope, but I will," said Bucky. He turned back to his van. "Come on, the quicker we do this, the quicker you can go battle traffic instead of talking to me."

Okay, well, if that was how Bucky wanted it to be. Clint picked up a box, checked the routing label, and went to put it in the right cage. He hadn't wanted to talk to the guy anyway.

****

Over the next couple of days, he was back far enough before Bucky to be able to allow himself a smug feeling of superiority. Oh yeah, who was the best driver now? It wasn't stupid Bucky, with his hair and his smirk and his shoulders, none of which Clint thought about at all because he hated the guy. Yep.

On Friday, he got back to find Bucky already in the warehouse. Well, you couldn't win them all.

"Been back long?" he asked, as casually as he could.

Bucky shrugged. "About an hour? I've just been helping Steve out."

An hour. Clint restrained a frustrated sigh. Next week, he'd blow the guy out of the water every single day, even if he had to break speed limits to do it.

"I wanted to ask you something, actually," said Bucky, glancing over his shoulder to where Steve was hunched over the computer, jabbing at it with one finger and muttering something. Steve really didn't get on with computers.

"Yeah?" asked Clint.

"Yeah," said Bucky. He hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Look, so, this thing with Steve and Sam is kinda ridiculous, right?"

Clint snorted. "Hell, yes it is. I swear to God, if I have to spend any more time watching them make eyes at each other when the other's not looking, I'm gonna snap."

"Right," said Bucky, nodding. "Okay. So, I thought it might be time to maybe do something about it. I was thinking that if we all went out for a drink, we could get them sat together, pour some booze down their throats, maybe one of them would get enough Dutch courage to make a move."

"Good thinking," said Clint. "And if the worse comes to the worse, we can just abandon them alone together and hope they pull their heads out of their asses."

"Yeah, exactly," said Bucky. "So, uh, do you want to come along?"

Clint hesitated. On the one hand, he got on with most of the guys and liked the idea of hanging out with them. On the other, he'd gone with large groups to bars before and it was basically an exercise in frustration, because he could never hear what anyone was saying in that kind of environment. Even if Natasha went along, he couldn't expect her to spend the whole night translating for him.

He shook his head. "Thanks, but I think I'll sit that one out."

Bucky twitched. "Oh, okay," he said. "I, uh," He stopped, then shook his head, turned around and walked off, leaving Clint to unload his van on his own. Okay, that was kinda rude.

****

Natasha did go along to the bar, and sent Clint a steady stream of texts to update him on how the mission to get Sam and Steve together was going.

_They've been sat together, talking to no one else, for at least half an hour._

_Wade just tried to steal Sam's beer, and Steve protected his honour._

_Pretty sure they don't need to be sitting so close that their shoulders are jammed together, and yet they're doing just that._

For some reason, she also kept him updated on Bucky.

_Bucky's doing a lot of staring off into the distance with a little frown._

_Bucky and Logan just got into an argument over men wearing purple. Bucky told Logan his opinion was fifty years out of date._

Maybe she thought he needed to know about that because he wore a lot of purple but frankly he didn't give a single shit about whether or not Logan had a problem with it. The guy had sideburns, after all. Actual sideburns, what the hell was up with that?

_Wade got Peter very, very drunk,_ was Natasha's final text. _I'm going to take him home. If you want further updates, you'll have to contact Bucky. I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you._

Clint snorted and gave Lucky a rub over his head. "Why do you think she thinks I care so much about Steve's love-life?" he asked him.

Lucky just gave him an adoring look, tongue hanging out. Man, dogs were so much easier to understand than people.

****

Mondays were always the quietest days. The freight all came in on Saturdays, so there were no sorters around and the drivers were all a bit more laid back, knowing the work was already all sorted and ready for them.

When Clint came in, Sam and Steve were huddled together behind a computer, debating which zipcodes they should put on which run. For a moment, Clint thought Steve's hand was resting on Sam's back, but as he got closer he saw there was a very careful distance being maintained between them.

He glanced over at Wade and raised an eyebrow, nodding towards Sam and Steve. Wade gave him an exaggerated eye-roll in response.

"We're all gonna drown in UST," he said. "I thought this was going to be action adventure, but it's all just rom-com bullshit."

"Better than it being a horror flick," said Clint. Half the time, he had no idea what the hell Wade was talking about. He'd learnt to just roll with it.

Wade gave him a funny look. "Are you kidding? I'd _love_ it to be a horror flick. There might be a chance for gratuitous violence then."

"And that's why you're the driver who gets the most complaints," said Steve, coming over. "Well, other than Logan, of course." They all glanced over at Logan who was outside, leaning against the warehouse wall with a cigar in his mouth. He growled at them.

"Clint," said Sam, "we're going to need you to take a couple of extra codes out today. Thor called in. His brother's having one of his bad days, and Thor needs to stay with him."

"That's cool," said Clint. "I had a light day anyway. What are we looking at?"

"Uh, probably about 120," said Sam. Okay, right, that was not at all a light day. 

Clint nodded and tried to look totally calm. "Yeah, that's fine."

"If it's going to be a problem, we can break a few off and give them to Bucky," said Steve, glancing at Sam. “He's kinda light as well.”

"Nope," said Clint immediately. "No, no, I got this. No problem at all."

Wade snorted. "God damn rom-com," he muttered, wandering off.

Clint ignored him. This was his chance, once and for all, to prove that he was the best driver. He needed to knock this out of the park.

Scanning everything and working out how to fit it on his van took longer than Clint was really happy about, especially as it turned out the sorters had done a piss-poor job on Saturday so he kept finding parcels in his bay that weren't for his codes.

"Hey, found one of yours," he said, handing it over to Bucky.

Bucky glanced down at it and gave a nod. "Thanks," he said, shortly.

Clint glanced over at where Steve was watching Sam loading the scanners up and giving him a sickeningly besotted look. "I see your plan didn't quite work out."

Bucky followed the line of his gaze and shrugged. "Guess I'm just shit at romance," he said, and walked away.

Clint watched him go and blinked. Wow, okay, was the guy getting ruder, or was it him?

****

It was all going well. The traffic was light, it turned out that eleven of the deliveries were all going in to the same company, he'd found neighbours at all but one of the addresses there was no one in at, and then-

“Come on,” he hissed, turning the key in the ignition again. The engine made a valiant attempt at turning over, then died with a choking whimper. “Aw, come on, baby,” he said. “Don't do this to me.”

He gave it one last try, then slumped forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel. God damn his shitty luck.

With a sigh, he pulled out his phone and texted Tony.

_Van's dead. Call the AA for me? I'm at 36th and Kenwood._

Tony replied almost immediately.

_Fucking shitting bollocks. How many drops have you got left?_

Clint glanced through his paperwork.

_47._ Too many.

_AA will be with you in an hour,_ sent Tony.

An hour. By which time, even if they could fix the van immediately, Clint was going to be way behind. Ugh, he was going to end up failing deliveries, that was the worst thing.

Ten minutes later Tony texted again. As soon as Clint read it, he bashed his head against the steering wheel again. Why him? Seriously? Had he pissed some god off at some time?

_Bucky's only got three deliveries left. I'm sending him over to meet you when he's done._

Bucky arrived about half an hour later.

“Tony said to take all your deliveries off you,” he said. “You've got about fifty, right?”

Clint nodded. “Yeah. And four collections.”

Bucky shook his head. “They've covered all your collections. He said they've let the other depots in the network know that we've got a vehicle breakdown, so we're covered if we can't get all the deliveries done.”

Clint sighed. “Right. Awesome.”

Bucky gave him a frown. “You care a lot about getting everything delivered, don't you?”

Oh, now the guy was going to judge him for being conscientious? “It's kinda the job,” he pointed out.

“No, I don't- I didn't mean that in a bad way,” said Bucky. “Just, you always want to take out more than everyone else, and get them all done quicker with less brought back. No one else cares that much.”

This was getting into an area that Clint didn't much like talking about. He just shrugged. “Guess I owe Tony and Steve,” he said, turning away to open the back doors of his van.

Bucky reached in for an armful of parcels. “Yeah, me too,” he said, sounding tired.

Oh right, Clint had forgotten that if anyone was going to understand, it would be Bucky, with his mysterious unemployability.

Clint grabbed a case of wine and followed Bucky around to the back of his van. “Same kind of reasons, I guess,” he said. “You're not the only one with an odd-looking resume. Plus, these don't exactly make it easy,” he said, tapping at his hearing aids. “Everyone pretends they're equal opportunities, but somehow the deaf guy always ends up at the bottom of any employment shortlist.”

Bucky glanced at Clint's ears with a frown. “Your hearing is that bad?”

Clint snorted. “You're kidding, right? You must have noticed me pretty much blanking everyone in the mornings. I can't hear shit if there's too many noises all happening at once.”

“Oh,” said Bucky, slowly, as they headed back to Clint's van for more parcels. “I just figured you were really fucking grumpy until you had coffee.”

“Nah,” said Clint. “I mean, don't get me wrong, I fucking love coffee, but I'm not grumpy without it. Just not properly awake.”

“Huh,” said Bucky.

A few more minutes passed, in which they moved some more parcels.

“Wait,” said Bucky. “Is that why you didn't come to the bar?”

“Pretty much,” said Clint.

“Oh,” said Bucky, and something in his face relaxed. “Okay.”

They finished moving the freight over just as the AA guy turned up.

“I'll hang around for a bit, see if you can get back on the road and take some of this back from me,” said Bucky.

“Or if I need a lift back to the depot cuz they're towing me,” said Clint, gloomily.

Bucky didn't have to wait around long. It took the AA guy about three minutes to open the hood, poke around, and declare Clint's fuel pump to be toast.

“Needs to be replaced, sorry,” he said. “I'll have to tow it to the garage.”

Clint groaned. “Fucking bullshit,” he muttered.

Bucky nudged him. “Guess you're with me, then,” he said. “Unless you want to go with him and skip me trying to deliver as much as I can before heading back.”

Clint looked at him, and then blinked. “No,” he said. “No, that's not what we're doing.”

“Uh,” said Bucky. “What-”

Clint grabbed his paperwork and glanced through what he had left to do. “We're going to get them all done today.”

Bucky stared at him. “Are you insane? You've just lost over an hour, it's getting towards rush hour, and we'll need to be back at the depot by 6.30 to meet the lorries going up to the hub.”

Clint shook his head. “I'm not insane, we can do this. Come on, it's us! We're the two best drivers at Avengers Couriers, we can do this. Two of us working together, of course we can get through a measly fifty deliveries.”

“There may be two of us, but there's only one van,” Bucky pointed out. “Seriously, you know no one will blame you for the failures.”

Clint shook his head. “It's not about blame, it's about being awesome. I know I'm awesome enough for this, are you saying you're not?”

Bucky still looked like he was thinking about all the different ways Clint was a moron, so Clint pulled out the big guns. He took hold of Bucky's elbow to make sure he was paying attention. “I thought you owed Tony and Steve too. You know it's way easier for them if these all get done and they don't have to worry about having the backlog tomorrow.”

Bucky just stared at him for a moment, and Clint gave him his best earnest look.

“Fuck,” muttered Bucky, glancing away. “Fuck, that ain't fair. Okay, fine. Let's do this. I still think you're crazy, though.”

Clint grinned and let go of Bucky to spin away towards the van. “Not crazy, just awesome!”

“Sure,” said Bucky. “Don't even think about getting behind the wheel, Captain Awesome. I'm driving.”

Clint turned his steps towards the passenger side. “That's cool, I'll plan our route,” he said, waving his paperwork at Bucky.

Bucky just sighed. “Fine, go nuts,” he said. “I'm not kidding about needing to be back by 6.30, though. I've got collections that need to go out with the freight tonight. If we're not done by 6, we're going back anyway.”

Clint nodded, already frowning over the addresses in front of him as he climbed into the van. “Not a problem, we'll be back. To great applause and acclaim.”

Bucky snorted. “I think you're vastly over-estimating how much people give a shit about a few parcels.”

“Try saying that to Tasha,” said Clint. “She can tell you stories about assholes on the phone who care entirely too much about a couple of parcels. You heard about the guy who threatened to come round and stab them all, and wouldn't stop calling back? Or the woman who compared not getting her parcel to the holocaust?”

“Jesus,” said Bucky, starting the van. “Suddenly really fucking glad I'm not in the office.”

****

The first few deliveries went okay, but they weren't moving fast enough for Clint's liking. Bucky was right about the traffic beginning to slow up as they got into rush hour.

“Okay, we've got two on Tennessee Way,” said Clint. “We can hit those at the same time.”

Bucky nodded. “I'll park between them.”

“And there's one on Jefferson Road and another on Roosevelt, they're back to back,” said Clint. “We can do those at the same time.”

“You have to go all the way around to get between them, though,” said Bucky. “Probably be quicker to drive.”

Clint shot him a grin. “You leave that to me.”

The look Bucky gave him was at least fifty percent doubt, but Clint ignored that. He'd learn not to doubt him. Well, at least not when it came to delivering parcels. There was other shit that people should always doubt Clint on.

They hit Tennessee Way and Clint sprinted down the road with his delivery, giving the woman who opened the door a bright smile that he hoped covered how much he was panting.

“Please sign here,” he said, shoving his scanner at her.

He got back to the van first, but he was relieved to see Bucky jogging down the road towards him. Good to know he was taking this seriously.

“Bastards weren't in. Had to find a neighbour,” said Bucky, as they jumped back into the van.

“Fuckers,” said Clint. “We better not get too many of those, or we're gonna be screwed.”

Bucky parked for the next two on Jefferson Road. Clint took the parcel for Roosevelt, which was only a small thing, little more than envelope.

Bucky eyed him. “Still don't figure how you're going to get around there and back quicker than if we just drove it.”

Clint grinned. “Watch and learn.”

He tucked the parcel inside his jacket, made sure the pocket with his scanner in was zipped up, then set his sights on the wall that separated them from Roosevelt. It was about the same height as him. He rolled his shoulders, then sprinted at it, jumped, caught the top with his hands and rolled his whole body to somersault over the top, grinning at Bucky's gobsmacked face as he went.

He landed on the other side to find two small boys on bikes staring at him.

“Number 216?” he asked, and they dumbly pointed.

“Thanks,” he said, and jogged towards it, pulling the parcel out as he went.

They were still there when he'd delivered it, so he gave them a grin. “Remember, Avengers Couriers always goes above and beyond,” he said, and went back over the wall the way he'd come.

Bucky was already back in the van but the look he gave Clint was just as satisfying as if he'd been right there to publicly declare Clint the best courier he'd ever met.

“I didn't realise there was going to be gymnastics involved in this,” he said as they got back on the road. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”

“The circus,” said Clint, with great satisfaction.

“Bullshit,” said Bucky.

“Nope,” said Clint. “I told you earlier my resume was kinda weird.”

“There's kinda weird, and then there's circus acrobat,” muttered Bucky.

“Oh, I wasn't an acrobat,” said Clint. “I just hung out with them enough to pick a couple of things up. I was an archery marksman.”

Bucky turned and stared at him for long enough that Clint was worried they were going to drive off the road.

“Archery,” he repeated, in a voice that meant he thought Clint was taking him for a ride. “And now you're a delivery driver.”

Clint shrugged. “More jobs for drivers than there are for archers.” Especially archers who were black-balled from the circus industry for turning half their troop in to the police. He looked back down at the runsheet. “Okay, we've got four at Kerouac Towers, we can take two each.”

“Is there going to be more parkour?” asked Bucky.

“Dunno,” said Clint, waggling his eyebrows at him. “Do you think you're not up to it? Cos I was going to challenge you to a race, but if you're not able to keep up-”

“Oh no,” said Bucky, “I can keep up. Don't underestimate me just cuz I can't imitate a Russian gymnast.”

“Fine then,” said Clint. “You take two, I take two, first back to the van gets- I don't know. Bragging rights.”

“Bragging rights,” repeated Bucky. “No way. If we're getting competitive, I want something tangible. Loser buys the winner a drink.”

“Done,” said Clint, and only then realised that meant he'd have to actually go out with Bucky to a bar at some point. Damn it, why the hell would Bucky even want that? He'd made it pretty clear that he didn't particularly enjoy talking to Clint.

Except, wait, he'd seemed kinda annoyed that Clint hadn't come to the bar the other night. Huh.

They got to Kerouac Towers and Clint pushed the thought aside in order to study the terrain. Concrete apartment blocks surrounded by walkways and stairs. Oh yeah, he had this.

Except it turned out one of his deliveries was a crate of wine and the other was a box of flowers. Not exactly the best freight to be running about with. Bucky took his own two small boxes and gave Clint a grin. “May the best man win,” he said, and took off.

And, okay, wow, the guy really could move. Those were some powerful legs.

Clint got the wine delivered as quickly as he could without risking dropping it, then tucked the flowers close to his chest and sprinted up three flights of stairs as fast as he could, only to find the woman they were for wasn't in. Of course not.

It took him two goes to find a neighbour that was in, and then he turned to dash back down the stairs. From the stairwell, he could see Bucky also on his way back to the van, running from the opposite side of the grounds, and he sped up as much as he could without risking tripping and just falling the whole way down.

With one flight to go, he could see he wasn't going to make it, not without drastic measures.

Ah, crap, he couldn't let that bastard win.

Rather than carrying down the stairs, he hopped over the balcony, dropped down until he was just clinging on with his hands, and then let himself drop.

He hit the ground with a shock that rang right through his knees, but didn't pause to check he was in one piece. Instead, he just pelted, full-tilt, towards the van, making it back in time to slam his hand onto the hood a second before Bucky.

“You are a fucking maniac,” said Bucky, in between gasps of air.

“Yeah,” agreed Clint. “Shit. Okay, next delivery.”

“Fucking maniac,” repeated Bucky as Clint walked around to get in and hoped it looked less like he was staggering than it felt.

“Come on,” he said when Bucky didn't move. “Still got thirty drops to go.” He grinned. “And you owe me a drink.”

“I think you owe me a new heart,” said Bucky, heading for the driver's side. “Jesus. I thought you were going to break half your bones.”

“Nah, not half of them,” said Clint. “One or two, maybe.”

“Maniac,” repeated Bucky.

They blew through most of the deliveries, even faster than Clint had thought they would, then got caught in standstill traffic on 56th Street.

"Oh man, come on," muttered Clint, ducking to try and see ahead for what the hold up was.

"Chill," said Bucky. "How many we got left?"

Clint glanced at the list. "Four. But we've only got twenty minutes, and we've been trapped here five minutes already."

Bucky made a face, then edged the van forward a few feet before having to stop again.

"I guess if we don't get them all done by the dot of 6, we can afford a bit of lee-way," said Clint, with resignation.

"Nope," said Bucky. "Come on, we set ourselves a time limit. We need to stick to it. By 6, or bust. What are the addresses?"

Clint grinned at him. For a guy who'd thought Clint was nuts for suggesting they could get them all done, he seemed to be pretty committed to the challenge now. "Kendall Street is the next one, then two on opposite ends of Pine Road, and one out on Safari Industrial Park."

Bucky made a face. "Which company? They're not going to be shut, are they?"

"Nah," said Clint. "It's HB Print. They're open until late."

Bucky nodded. "Okay," he said. He glanced ahead at the traffic. "This is what we're going to do then. We'll get off here at Morrell Drive and go around the back to Kendall, then straight over to Pine. You can drop me on the corner of Oak Road and I'll head up to HB Print while you do the two on Pine, and I'll meet you back at the second one."

It was Clint's turn to give Bucky a look. "You're kidding, right? You're going to walk all the way up to Safari and back around to the end of Pine? That's gonna take way longer than just driving up there."

Bucky grinned. "Nah, it'll be fine. I'll be back to meet you in plenty of time." The traffic started moving again and they made just far enough down the road for him to turn off onto Morrell Drive.

Clint shook his head. "I'll come pick you up when I'm done."

"You won't need to," said Bucky. "Seriously, I may not be the acrobatic wonderkid, but trust me on this one. I can sprint up there and back in plenty of time."

"Right," said Clint, with deep scepticism. "Well, I guess seeing is believing."

"You're gonna believe," said Bucky, pulling up on Kendall Street.

They made that delivery, then Clint took the wheel, heading out towards Pine Road. He stopped at the corner of Oak Road and let Bucky out. Bucky got the parcel for HB Print, then gave him a smug grin. "See you very soon," he said, then turned and took off down the road.

Clint allowed himself three seconds to really enjoy the sight of Bucky's ass as he sprinted away from him, then pulled back out. After all, he couldn't let Bucky get his one done before Clint had done both of his.

He got the last one done, gave the guy that signed for it a big smile, then allowed himself a little dance once the door was shut. Oh yeah, they'd got them all done. They were awesome.

He turned to find Bucky behind him, looking barely out-of breath. "You're kinda dorky," he said, as if that was news to anyone.

Okay, how the holy hell had he got all the way up to Safari Industrial Park and back so quickly? Clint was seriously impressed, although he did his best no to show it.

He shrugged unrepentantly. "We did it," he said, glancing at his watch. "It's 5.57. We're fucking awesome."

Bucky laughed. "Yeah," he agreed. Clint walked down the path to him, holding his hand up for a high five. Bucky gave it a concerned look, but obediently slapped it.

"I'll let you call Tony and give him the good news," said Clint. "Mostly because you'll be able to hear his joy properly, but you've got to pass on all the compliments, yeah?"

"Sure," said Bucky. "I'll make sure your ego gets stroked."

"See that you do," said Clint, as they got back in the van. "Nothing I love more than a good ego-stroking." He sent Bucky a wink, and then thought better of it. Whoops, probably shouldn't flirt with the guy who didn't know he had a bad tendency to flirt with everyone.

Bucky didn't look off-put, though. He gave Clint a grin that made his face light up and, wow, he really was pretty handsome, how had Clint not noticed that before? "Well, any time you need some stroking."

Oh man, was he flirting back? Was that a thing, or was he just following Clint's lead?

Bucky pulled out his phone and dialled the office.

"We're on our way back," he said, then glanced over at Clint with a little grin. "Nope, we haven't got any failed ones." The grin grew. "Well, it turns out that we're awesome."

"Tony should already know that I'm awesome," called Clint, loudly enough that it would be heard down the phone.

Bucky rolled his eyes at him. "Tony seems to think you have an ego problem as well."

"Tony's got some nerve talking over-sized egos," said Clint.

"Yeah," said Bucky, down the phone. "We're on our way back." Whatever Tony said next made the smirk fall off his face, and he half-turned away from Clint. "No fucking comment," he hissed. "See you in a bit."

He hung up the phone and started the van up.

"What was that about?" asked Clint.

"Nothing," said Bucky, staring out of the windscreen with a firm frown.

Right, okay.

****

They got back into the depot and Clint hopped out with his hands raised. "Steve!" he called. "Steve, congratulate us, for we are mighty heroes!"

Steve glanced over from where he was labelling some freight that Wade was unloading from his van. "I heard. Good going, you two."

"Good going?" repeated Clint. "It was a little better than that!" Where was the acclaim they deserved? The many rounds of applause followed by streamers, maybe a parade? 

Natasha marched out of the office and fixed Wade with a fierce glare. "Wade Wilson, what have you done?"

"Hey, hey, Tasha," said Clint. "Did you hear-"

Natasha held a hand up to stop him. "I'll be suitably impressed in a minute, Clint, I need to rip this idiot apart first."

"Aw man," said Wade. "What now? You know, I'm sure you office staff pick on me deliberately."

"Did you threaten someone with a knife?" asked Natasha.

Wade winced. "Ah, yeah. That."

"Dude, seriously?" asked Clint.

Steve let out a long sigh. "Wade, I thought Tony and I made this clear to you. We can't have drivers who act like that working here."

"No, no, it was totally justified," said Wade. "Hear me out. So, I had a perishable delivery. Meat or something that was minutes away from going off. No one in, no answer on the telephone number and it took me four goes to find a neighbour, and then they refused to take it because the people it was going to are Muslims and, I quote, 'what if it's a bomb or something'."

"Oh Jesus," said Steve, with disgust.

"Right," said Wade. "So, I tried to be reasonable and pointed out that it wasn't a bomb, because then it wouldn't be perishable-"

"I don't know, if it was counting down to exploding, that would count as perishable, right?" said Clint.

Natasha turned her glare on him and he shut up. Right, okay, not the time for jokes. He glanced over at Bucky, who just gave him a shrug.

"Where did the knife come into it?" Natasha asked Wade.

"Well, I was there ages, trying to persuade them," said Wade. "And I had other deliveries to get to. So, I just pulled the knife and told them that if they didn't take it, I'd cut them open and sew the parcel up inside them."

Steve groaned. "Oh god. This is going to end up on social media."

"If it does, we can get them for being racist bastards," said Wade.

Natasha sighed. "Not how it works, sadly. Come with me, you're going to phone them and apologise."

"No, I'm fucking not," said Wade.

"You are, or you're going to lose your job," said Steve.

Wade sighed, and his shoulders dropped. "This kind of shit never happens in the comics," he muttered, nonsensically, and trailed after Natasha back into the office.

Clint helped Bucky and Steve unload, then went in to the office to contact the mechanic and find out what was happening with his van. It wasn't good news.

"It's not gonna be ready for me to pick up until Wednesday morning," he told Tony. "I'm not gonna be able to come in tomorrow, sorry."

Tony made a face, but nodded. "Nothing much we can do about that," he said. "We'll get your run covered tomorrow." He grinned and glanced over at where Bucky was hovering by the door. "Unless you want to come in and go out with Bucky again? You seem to have had a lot of fun today."

Clint glanced back at Bucky, who was looking up at the ceiling with exasperation. "Yeah, it was good, but you know what's going to be better?" he asked. "Hanging out with my dog for the whole day."

Tony shrugged. "Fair enough. See you on Wednesday, then."

"Do you want a lift home?" asked Bucky.

Clint hadn't expected that. He'd already been running the public transport options through his head and wondering if he should just stick around until Natasha was done, and get her to drop him home.

"Or, you know, I do owe you a drink," said Bucky. "We could find a bar. Uh. A quiet bar."

For some reason, that made everyone in the office pause and turn to look at Clint.

He shrugged. "Sure, why not? It's not like I need to get up early for work tomorrow now."

Bucky grinned at him as Maria and Natasha exchanged significant looks. Clint ignored them. Bucky might owe him a drink, but Clint probably owed him too, for going along with Clint's mad dash around half the city.

****

The bar they went to did food as well, so Clint got a sandwich along with his beer.

"To the two best drivers in the depot," he said, raising his bottle.

Bucky grinned and touched his bottle to his. "I'm guessing we're not going to discuss who the best overall is?"

"No need to discuss something that we both know," said Clint.

Bucky snorted. "Right," he said. "Of course. You know, you're pretty confident for a guy who doesn't even have a van at the moment."

"I'll use yours," said Clint. "Apparently you could just run around your whole route."

"Sure, why not?" said Bucky. "I'll get a backpack for the parcels."

"Okay, I want to see that," said Clint. "And, more, I want to see the look on Steve's face."

"He'd probably just look resigned," said Bucky. "He's pretty good at putting up with my bullshit."

"You've known him a while?" asked Clint.

"Since we were kids," said Bucky, and launched in to a story about Steve getting into a fight with a guy twice his size and Bucky coming to his rescue that sounded entirely too believable. Clint settled back in his chair and sniggered at the idea of a tiny version of Steve waving his fists at some bully.

They stayed for a couple of drinks. Chatting to Bucky turned out to be easy, especially as he seemed to find Clint's jokes funny, even the shitty ones that usually just got him exasperated looks. It definitely helped that he was giving Clint plenty of those blinding grins that made him look hot enough to be in the movies. How had it taken Clint this long to notice that he was sexy as hell?

Well, okay, maybe he'd been too busy being pissed with the guy over a stupid competition to really look at him. He was looking now though, possibly a bit more than he should be. Eh, if the guy was going to sit there and laugh at Clint's impression of Logan the day the paint spilled in the back of his van, he was going to have to put up with Clint admiring how that looked.

“I should probably call it a night,” said Bucky eventually, with regret. “Some of us have to get up for work in the morning.”

“Some of us are going to be in bed until lunch time,” said Clint, grinning at him as they got up. “I'm pretty much only intending to get dressed tomorrow to take Lucky for a walk.”

“Bastard,” said Bucky as they headed back out to his van. “Now I'm gonna be thinking about you in bed all tomorrow when I'm on the road.” He sent Clint a quick smirk over his shoulder and, wait, he hadn't meant that how it sounded, did he?

No, almost certainly not. Clint was willing to put money on the fact that the guy had hated him up until today. No way he was flirting.

Bucky gave Clint a lift over to his apartment.

“Thanks for today,” said Clint, before he got out. “I appreciate you buying in to my crazy.”

Bucky laughed. “Turns out your crazy is the same flavour as mine,” he said. “I had a lot more fun than I think I've ever had on the job.”

Clint shrugged. “You've got to find your fun where you can, right?” He put his hand on the door handle, feeling oddly reluctant to get out. It wasn't as if he wasn't going to be seeing Bucky again, pretty much every working day.

A look of hesitation crossed Bucky's face, then he muttered what looked like _fuck it_ , leaned in, and kissed Clint.

Oh.

OH.

Oh, okay, this made sense. A lot of sense.

Why the hell hadn't Clint realised this was a thing?

Bucky started to pull away, but Clint wasn't done having his epiphany, so he grabbed his elbow and kept him close, kissing him back with all the rush of emotion that was running through him. It turned out he wanted this a whole hell of a lot.

So did Bucky, if the way he was kissing Clint was anything to go by. He cupped his hand around Clint's head, keeping him in close. Even when their lips separated, he stayed there, leaning his forehead against Clint's.

“I've been wanting to do that for so long,” he confessed, in a quiet voice.

Clint blinked. “You have?”

Bucky snorted and leaned back, giving Clint a fond smile. “I guess you really are as oblivious as Natasha said. I thought you were trying to brush me off by blanking me.”

Clint stared at him. “Seriously? Wait, how long-”

“Not answering that,” said Bucky. “You'll think I'm an idiot.”

“Sounds more like I've been the idiot,” said Clint. “Guess we need to make up for lost time.”

He pulled Bucky back in and kissed him again, shifting closer so that he could get an arm around his shoulders. The front seat of a Transit wasn't the easiest place to do this, but he was willing to work with the limitations if it meant he got to keep feeling Bucky's mouth against his.

“Speaking of,” said Bucky, “and, uh, this is kinda weird, but can I get a selfie of us kissing?”

Clint stared at him. “Is this some kind bragging rights thing?”

“No!” said Bucky. “No, god, no. Not that I'm not going to want to be bragging, but I've got some chill. No, this is for Steve. We've got a kinda dare that if I kiss you, he'll kiss Sam.”

“Oh,” said Clint, “that's totally different. We definitely need to get that to happen.”

“Probably hypocritical of me,” said Bucky, getting his phone out, “but I swear if it takes any longer, I'm just going to lock them in the security cage.”

Hypocritical. Huh. “Wait,” said Clint, “you've really been crushing on me like Sam and Steve do each other?”

Bucky lowered his head over his phone as he fiddled with the settings and shrugged one shoulder. “Sort of.”

Clint blinked, running through the last few weeks in his head. “Is that why you asked me along to the bar? Wait, hang on, is that why Tasha keeps giving me those looks?”

“I kinda think she'd give you those anyway,” said Bucky. “You're a disaster.” He held the phone up and gestured at him. “Come on, pucker up.”

Clint leant in to kiss him again, this time keeping his attention more on angling it for a good photo rather than getting to just enjoy Bucky's mouth. As soon as the shutter had clicked though, he turned so he could kiss Bucky properly, running a hand up through his hair. Bucky made a quiet noise in his throat and relaxed into him, dropping the phone so that he could take hold of Clint.

“Are you coming up?” Clint asked, nodding at his apartment building.

Bucky hesitated, then reluctantly shook his head. “Unless I'm reading this wrong, you haven't thought about this before now. Kinda feels like I should give you some cooling off time.”

Clint snorted. “I won't need it,” he said, because he might be a bit slow, but once he caught on, he didn't back out. “But sure, I guess that's the mature intelligent thing to do.” He kissed Bucky again, just a quick peck. “I should get out of the van, then.”

Bucky's grip on him tightened. “Maybe in a couple of minutes,” he said, and kissed Clint again.

****

When Clint woke up the next morning, there were three photos waiting for him on his phone. The first showed Steve standing just slightly too close to Sam, staring down at him with a fiercely determined look, the next was him kissing him, clutching at his shoulders as Sam appeared to be frozen with surprise. In the last one, Sam had grabbed hold of Steve and was giving as good as he was getting.

There was also a text from Bucky that had been sent about half an hour after the photos.

_Kinda regret it. The fuckers won't stop now. It's slowing the whole operation up._

_Get Natasha to put out a bulletin to the other depots,_ Clint sent back. _Drivers delayed leaving by the sudden resolution of UST._

He stumbled towards his kitchen for coffee, pausing only to pet Lucky on the way. Bucky had replied by the time he got there.

_Not sure the network would count that as a valid issue. Besides, I'm trying to avoid talking to any of the office staff. Steve told them all about me and you, and now I'm getting nothing but jokes._

Oh man, that meant Clint was going to get a whole load of mockery the next time he saw Natasha. Not to mention Tony, that guy was a menace.

_You should have stayed over here after all, then called in sick,_ he sent. _You could be having coffee with me right now. If we'd managed to make it out of bed yet._

_Bastard,_ was Bucky's sole response. Well, okay, that seemed fair.

Clint poured himself another cup of coffee and went to curl up on the sofa with Lucky. An unexpected day off meant being lazy as hell, right?

He had managed to shower and get dressed by mid afternoon, but only because he'd needed to take Lucky out. He was slumped in front of the TV, thinking that he should attempt to do something at least slightly productive with his day but not willing to make the effort to actually get up, when there was a knock on his door. 

Lucky's head lifted and glanced over at it and Clint groaned. So much for not getting up off the sofa. If it was Jehovah's Witnesses or some such bullshit, he was going to be really pissed.

It wasn't close to anything that annoying. It was Bucky.

He gave Clint a grin. “Got a special delivery for you.”

“Oh wow, did I suddenly step into a porn movie without noticing?” said Clint. “Cuz, if you're my co-star, I'm totally okay with that.”

“Well, I was just going to give you a kiss and go, but now I'm thinking maybe you've got a plan,” said Bucky.

Clint opened his door wider and stepped back. “How about you come in and show me your package?”

Bucky groaned as he came in. “Okay, that's bad,” he said. “Please tell me you're not actually going to make me suffer through bad porn dialogue.”

Clint shut the door. “Only if you make me wait much longer for that kiss you promised.”

Bucky was kissing him less than a second later, which was just what Clint had been hoping for. He put his arms around Clint and then pushed him back against the door, their bodies pressed together as Clint ran his hands down Bucky's back to rest on his ass.

“Jesus,” he said, breathlessly. “Okay, this is pretty much the best delivery I've ever got.”

Bucky grinned. “Avengers Couriers are always going above and beyond,” he said. “I've finished all my deliveries, by the way. Not got anything but a collection from Westchester that's not going to be ready until 5.”

Clint glanced at the clock and grinned. “Well, that gives us a nice long chunk of time. We could have coffee, or take the dog for a walk, or-” He pulled Bucky's ass in towards his body, grinning at him. “I don't know, something else, maybe?”

Bucky snorted. “So, that cooling off period-”

“Was just as useless as I predicted,” said Clint. “Definitely not feeling cooled right now. Kinda hot, if anything.”

“Yeah, you look kinda hot,” said Bucky, and kissed him again. “Fuck it, which way's your bedroom?”

Oh hell yes. Exactly what Clint had been hoping for. He kissed Bucky again, then looped an arm around his waist to drag him off to his bedroom. Time to take full advantage of his unexpected delivery.


End file.
